Deal With the Devil Read online

  I felt numb all over. “Rosie—your granddaughter Belinda, was she a member of the Clear Water pack?”

  “Oh yes, that’s where she lives.” She nodded. “Anyway, when I found out Mr. Jude had taken me at my word and actually done it, I felt real sorry.”

  “You did?” I asked. “For the pack master?”

  Rosie frowned. “Of course not! That nasty man got what he deserved. And let me tell you, Belinda is still recovering from what he did to her. They say he may never shift again but I say too damn bad. My little lamb may never be the same again either.” She dabbed at her eyes with a folded napkin. “No, I felt bad for Mr. Jude. See, I don’t know if you know this, but he’s a different kind of vampire. He doesn’t just know things about people—he can kind of taste the way they’re feeling. So when he does something like that, it affects him a lot more than it would you or me. Not that either one of us is up to taking on a pack master but you get what I mean.”

  “I get you,” I said numbly. “So…you think Jude doesn’t like the, uh, taste of someone else’s pain when he hurts them?”

  Rosie shook her head vehemently. “Oh no, child—that’s like bitter medicine to him. Makes him sick and tired for a long time afterward, too. If I’d known he was really going to do what I said, I would have asked him to do something quick to that pack master instead.”

  I didn’t like to think what forms of “quick” torture Rosie had in mind for the evil pack master but my mind wasn’t really on that, anyway. I was remembering how Jude had admitted to skinning the leader of the Clear Water wolves and the way he’d assured me that he had a reason for everything he did. Well, I had just learned his reason and it didn’t have anything to do with feeding on the pack master’s pain at all. It seemed almost too good to be true but I needed to know for sure.

  I looked at Rosie. “So you’re sure Jude doesn’t like the, uh, the taste of negative emotions?”

  “He told me when he hired me it was because he liked my happiness,” she said, smiling. “Of course, I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about back then—back before I knew him. I thought he just meant I had a good attitude. But later on I found out, he really did like the way my feelings tasted.”

  “So…he feeds on you?” I asked uncertainly. It would certainly explain Jude’s need to have a full-time maid when he was the only occupant of his house.

  “Not in a nasty way,” Rosie hastened to assure me. “And he doesn’t take my blood—my goodness, certainly not. He doesn’t need much of that anyway, even if he is a vampire. But he likes to sit and talk with me and when I’m feeling happy or contented or good, that sort of fills his tank. Do you see what I mean?”

  “I do,” I said. “I see what you mean.” I saw a lot of other things too. Like the fact that I had been completely wrong about Jude for one thing. I’d assumed that he wanted to be near me because of my horrible past and my angst. Now I realized that I must be a pretty bitter pill for him to swallow whenever he was near me.

  “What is it, child?” Rosie put her hand on mine. “You look like you’re thinking hard and not liking whatever conclusion you’re coming to.”

  I cleared my throat. “Well, I…to be honest I was wondering what Jude sees in me at all. I’m not a very happy person a lot of the time so it can’t be very comfortable for him to be around me. What does he want with me anyway?”

  “Child, he loves you.” Rosie stroked my hand. “Don’t you know that by now? I’ve never seen him look so low as since you left him. He’s been moping around here looking like death warmed over and missing you ‘til it most makes him sick. He needs you, Luz, and I’m guessing maybe you need him too.”

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head. “He lied to me. I just wonder…what else is there about him that I don’t know?”

  “Ask me anything and I swear I’ll answer truthfully.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jude’s deep voice startled me. I turned to see him standing behind me with an unreadable expression on his face. I wasn’t sure how long he’d been there—he might have heard the entire conversation as far as I could tell. Apparently while Rosie and I had been talking, the sun had set, releasing him from wherever he spent his daylight hours. Sure enough, when I looked out the kitchen window I saw the backyard was painted in the dusky purple tones of twilight.

  Rosie got up from the table, taking my mostly empty soup bowl with her to the sink. “I think I need to be getting on home now.”

  “Thanks, Rosie,” I said. “For everything.”

  She waved a hand at me. “Anytime, Miss Luz. You two just need to sit down and work this out now.” She pointed sternly to the kitchen table, indicating Jude should sit beside me. Then she took a cracked leather pocketbook out of one of the bottom cupboards and left. As she walked down the hall I could hear her muttering to herself. “These young folks, I swear—think everything is the end of the world when all they need to do is just talk to each other.”

  “Well,” I said, looking up at Jude. “Maybe we ‘young folks’ do need to talk.”

  He smiled as he took the seat beside me. “Actually, I am considerably older than Rosie is but I think she likes playing the mother hen.”

  “I sort of got that,” I said dryly. “But it’s nice—she’s nice. A happy person to be around. Unlike some other people I could name.” I pointed to myself and frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me you only fed on positive emotions?”

  “Because I don’t,” he said mildly. “Any kind of emotion will nourish me—the incubus part of me, I mean. But Rosie is right, I much prefer positive to negative emotions. And it does drain me to commit acts that directly cause negative emotions like pain or fear or horror.”

  “Yes, but you do it anyway,” I said, remembering the gore-fest from the night before.

  “Only when necessary and never because I enjoy it.” His eyes flashed. “Although I must say I took great pleasure in eviscerating the men who were about to hurt you last night. I only wish I could have killed Engle myself.”

  “I wouldn’t mind bringing him back so I could kill him again, myself,” I said with a grim smile. “And normally I would say that the other males didn’t deserve to die because they were only following his lead. But in this case, they were all…I mean, Engle had told them that after he was done with me…” I couldn’t go on.

  Jude reached out to cup my cheek and brushed away a tear with his thumb. “Let it out, Luz. I imagine it will be a long while before you’re able to get over the events of last night.”

  “See?” I said sniffling. “You say you want to be with me but what about this?”

  “What about what, beloved?” he said gently.

  “This.” I pointed at myself again, at my tears. “I’m a mess, Jude. I’m full of angst and anger and unhappiness—it must be like tasting castor oil every minute you’re around me.”

  “It’s not like that at all,” he assured me. “I promise you it is not, Luz.”

  I wiped my eyes. “But I’ll never be a happy all the time, glass-is-half-full kind of person. Don’t you want to be with someone like that? Someone like Rosie?”

  “I have someone like Rosie in my life—Rosie.” He smiled. “All I want now—all I lack—is you.”

  “But I still don’t see why you would even want me near you.”

  “Luz,” he said quietly. “Do you think that sorrow and joy are the only kinds of emotions I subsist on? Think back to your mythology—what are incubi said to feed on the most?”

  “Nightmares and fear,” I said. “Or…humans believe they, uh, you, I mean, feed on…on sex?” I looked at him uncertainly and he nodded.

  “The moment I touched you, that very first time I shook your hand at your old work, I knew,” he said. “I felt all your anger and sorrow and fear but I also felt a tremendous buildup of sexual frustration. You had been given so little pleasure in your life, so little tenderness. I knew right then that I wanted to be your first, that I wanted to taste your desire and longing an